Hard Skills: Definition and Best Examples for any Resume

This is nothing regarding how difficult hard skills are. However, it’s practically about how process-oriented such capabilities could be.

It is possible for you to learn Hard Skills through courses, vocational training, and on the job. They normally focus these skills on particular tasks and processes, like the use of equipment, tools, or software.

Commonly, they normally list the hard skills needed for a position in the job description’s “Requirements” section.

Unlike soft skills, which are actually your traits and abilities that are not unique to any job—think of collaboration, time management, empathy, or leadership.

By the way, ask, which kind of skill set is more important? A LinkedIn study recommends that a slight majority (57% vs 43%) of employers prefer soft skills to hard skills.

But first, we look at Hard Skills – to better understand Hard Skills; we find answers to the following questions:

1. What are hard skills?
2. What are some of the hard skills examples listed?
3. Review on the top 10 hard skills for resumes.
4. How do you list hard skills on your resume?
5. How can you improve your Hard Skills?

What Are Hard Skills?

Hard skills are job-specific abilities or knowledge that are learned through education, front-line experience, or training.

Practically, hard skills are what you call the “technical skills” which are needed to perform a certain job, or a usual set of expertise, like managing projects.

Check Out: 15 Best Technical Skills for a Resume + Examples

What Are Some Of The Hard Skills Examples List?

Hard Skills Examples List:

1. Technical skills
2. Computer skills
3. Microsoft Office skills
4. Analytical skills
5. Marketing skills
6. Presentation skills
7. Management skills
8. Project management skills
9. Writing skills
10. Language skills
11. Design skills
12. Certifications

See Also: What are Organizational Skills? Examples and Lists

Reviews On The Top 10 Hard Skills For Resumes:

1. Technical Skills

Technical skills may involve specialized knowledge and expertise in disciplines like IT, engineering, or science. Common technical skills are abilities to make use of specialized software or equipment.

 Here are some examples of technical hard skills:

1. CAD
2. Lean manufacturing
3. Multivariate analysis
4. Linear regression
5. Prototyping
6. Workflow development
7. STEM skills
8. Web: HTML, CSS, Javascript
9. Payment processing 
10. Automated Billing Systems
11. CRM Platforms
12. Research
13. Troubleshooting

Read Also: How To Learn New In-Demand Skills In 2023 | Strategies That Work

2. Computer Skills

Computer skills are the abilities you have to make use of software and hardware: from elementary and general, to advanced specialized.

The job market today needs people who are highly skilled as far as handling the computer. It’s a vital skill in almost all industries. Ensure you add a list of them on your resume, especially if you intend applying for office jobs and if the job ad requires specifics.

Here’s a list of some basic computer skills:

1. MS Office:
   • Word
   • Excel
   • Outlook
   • Powerpoint
   • OneNote
   • Access
2. Google Drive
3. Spreadsheets
4. Email
5. Presentations/Slideshows
6. Database Management
7. Quickbooks
8. Social media
9. Web
10. Typing
11. Graphics
12. Enterprise systems
13. WPM

And here you’ll see some typical programming skills:

1. Java
2. PHP
3. MySQL
4. SQL
5. C#
6. JavaScript
7. C++
8. Python
9. iOS/Swift
10. Ruby on Rails

3. Analytical Skills

Analytical skills are the skills where you gather data, analyse it, decrypt the meaning, and present it. 

No matter the job you’re searching for, if you show capability as it concerns how good at managing data analysis, the recruiter scores you additional bonus points.

Here are some analytical skills to put on a resume:

1. Research
2. Forecasting
3. Data mining
4. Data presentation
5. Resource management
6. Data engineering
7. Database management
8. Data and metrics interpreting
9. Reporting
10. Diagnostics
11. Creativity
12. Theorizing

4. Marketing Skills

Marketing skills involve the common knowledge of advertising, sales, and consumer service and research, as well as a myriad of advanced technical, digital skills required for success in today’s online marketing.

Also, marketing hard skills are of tremendous value to candidates in media, advertising, social media, e-commerce, and product management.

 Some examples include:

1. SEO/SEM: Ahrefs, SEMRush, SEO Power Suite, Majestic
2. PPC
3. Social media marketing and paid social media advertising
4. Writing
5. CRO and A/B testing
6. Email marketing and automation
7. HubSpot, Aritic PinPoint, ONTRAPORT, Infusionsoft
8. Funnel management
9. UX Design
10. Data visualization
11. Google Analytics and Google Search Console
12. AdWords, Facebook Paid Ads

5. Presentation Skills

You may want to know if presentation skills aren’t soft skills?

This is not exactly so. But of course, you need certain soft, transferable skills to deliver a good presentation, such as confidence, adaptability, self-awareness, or stress management. But then to facilitate your presentation or report, you’ll need at least a few of these hard skills:

1. Visual communication
2. Slideshows
3. Research
4. Data analysis
5. Reporting
6. Persuasion
7. Graphic design

6. Management Skills

Here again, you could feel like individual skills are the crux of good management and leadership. But then again, that’s just partly right.

To be an excellent manager, you also need the following job-specific skills like:

1. Business knowledge
2. Budgeting
3. Project management
4. Hiring
5. Finance
6. Office management skills
7. Logistics
8. New business development
9. Negotiating
10. Planning

7. Project Management Skills

Project management skills assure you that things get done.

In fact: they do these things in time and within a workable budget. If your project management is hard skill, it will be an additional advantage for any kind of job where you need to coordinate processes or individuals’ work.

Project management skills may include general managerial expertise as well as proficiency in certain frameworks and software. Here are some examples of Project Management hard skills:

1. Project scheduling
2. Strategic planning
3. Project life-cycle management
4. Agile software
5. Scrum management
6. Financial modeling
7. Kanban
8. Forecasting
9. Performance tracking
10. Budgeting

8. Writing Skills

A firm hold of writing techniques surely gives your career a boost if your job calls for any kind of writing. You could actually think of typing up quarterly reports, presentations for clients onboarding documents, sales pitches, etc.

Check out these examples:

1. Basic writing: grammar, punctuation, spelling, vocabulary
2. Note-taking
3. Letter writing
4. Email writing
5. Business writing reports, press releases, content management
6. Data visualization
7. Creative writing: plotting, world-building, dialogue
8. Academic writing
9. Storytelling
10. Copywriting
11. SEO
12. Editing
13. Journalism
14. Proposal writing
15. Social media
16. Presentation writing

9. Language Skills

People look down on language skills. Unknown to them, it is a tremendous skill, as many people benefit financially and otherwise from being language interpreters.

Knowing over one language certainly sets you apart from your competition for any job in a company which deals with international customers or stakeholders.

To be an expert or great interpreter of language, just create a section for languages. List all foreign languages you know or would like to know and show your proficiency level. However, you can also emphatically state your multilingual skills in other parts.

10. Design Skills

If you’re highly skilled at drawing pictures, especially being skilled at illustration in books and magazines, I assure you of being fought for by different employers just to hire you. It’s beyond if your niche is graphic design. It also includes your ability to create polished visual materials, which is an outstanding asset in all work environments.

Here are some graphic design skills examples.

1. Photoshop
2. Illustrator
3. InDesign
4. UX/UI design
5. UX research
6. Data visualization
7. Color theory
8. Acrobat
9. HTML/CSS
10. Free Hand
11. Corel Draw
12. Sketching
13. Typography
14. Print design
15. Layout

How Do You List Hard Skills On Your Resume?

Here are three steps to showcase hard skills on your resume effectively:

1. Determine what employers in your industry are looking for

The best hard skills to add to your resume are those employers are specifically looking for.

So you may want to know, how do you find out what they want to see? The answer to this is to start by researching the position and studying the job ad. Hard skills are important for doing practically all jobs, therefore managers who hire will always state what skills they desire candidates must have in the “Requirements” section of the advertisement.

2. Put your skills section at the top of your resume

If applying for a job where particular hard technical skills are more important than anything else, like a position in software engineering, do well to list your skills section right above the work experience on your resume.

By doing so, you ensure that managers hiring can quickly and easily find the most important information they’re looking for, which is your technical skills at a single glance. In a job where you possess or fall short of a certain hard skill and is the key to landing an interview, this simple change can be the distinction between your resume earning you an interview and having to lose one.

3. Highlight hard skills in your experience section

When you list hard skills on your resume, this is good enough for various jobs. This isn’t the only alternative to showcase your abilities. If you indeed desire to highlight your expertise in a certain area, the highly effective way to do it is to provide real-life instances of how your hard skills have assisted you to achieve certain accomplishments.

To do this, you may include bullet points in your resume’s work experience section which show how you used your hard skills to achieve key goals for your precious employer.

How Can You Improve Your Hard Skills?

There are various ways you can improve your hard skills and make yourself marketable and even valuable when you apply for new positions. The most common ways to gain or refine your hard skills include:

1. Through Certifications: There are various certifications that are available for diverse hard skills. Gaining a certification is one tremendous way to improve or learn a hard skill and offers you with strong physical evidence of that skill which you can put on your resume.

1. Through Online courses: An online course is a suitable way to learn a new skill or improve existing hard skills.

1. Through Practice: Frequent practice of hard skills is also key to getting better at them. Choose one hard skill to practice each day for a few weeks. Once you’ve been able to master that skill, move on to another skill.

Other Relevant Points

Importance Of Hard Skills

Hard skills are valuable for both employees and employers. When you learn the right hard skills, employees are able to perform their job more effectively and efficiently.

And when you hire employees with hard skills, employers certainly benefit from increased productivity, lower turnout rates, and increased employee satisfaction.

Characteristics of Hard Skills

Hard skills are literally teachable and measurable abilities, like writing, reading, or the ability to use computer programs.

Unlike soft skills, which are the traits that make you an outstanding employee, such as etiquette, communication and listening, getting along with other people.

Hard Skills vs Soft Skills

Hard skills are those talents and abilities that they can measure. They are normally specific to a particular job, and you can learn them through schooling or on-the-job-training.

They almost don’t define Soft skills which often apply not only to one particular job but are universal.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Conclusion

It is worthy of note that today’s world requires that individuals, especially the younger ones, possess one or two Hard Skills as this hands them lots of benefits and makes them more invaluable.

Therefore, it’s important that everyone sign up for a course in Hard Skills.

References

• glassdoor.com – Hard Skills: What They Are, Why You Need Them, and How to Improve Your Hard Skills
• resumegenius.com/ – Hard Skills: 51+ Examples (& Lists for a Resume)
• zety.com – What Are Hard Skills? 

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